His saffron robes

Well, I'm seriously contemplating a life of abstinence and clean-living, if only I was any good at that kind of thing.

Experience shows I'm not. Every now and again I need that blast. I need to break a few windows, run the lights.

I love the feeling of being clean and healthy inside. Love what it does to my thinking and dexterity. I yearn for that feeling when I'm sitting poisoned on this train. That's when I pull out the Dalai Lama's book from my overloaded rucksack and try to get my head around purging my body and mind.

I'm only shallow in the end and I fear some of this thinking is a result of my love-affair with Kerouac. Those Beats. Practitioners of Buddhism and hard-drinking brakes-off free-wheelers.

If I cut myself a little slack, I can see that there's also some personal reflection in there after thirty-odd years of living with this often badly-behaved adult. Kerouac is just throwing me a line to trail in the water with the rest.

I flip between a life of responsible control and one of running at freedom, lying in the grass while everyone else is in school.

I'm not so vain as to think I'm alone in this situation. There are eight billion of us trying to pull off the same trick and succeeding or failing to some degree. And I'm old and ugly enough to have spotted that something isn't right behind even the most neatly-mown lawn.

I'm overdue a change - I know that. Maybe that's half the reason my situation seems so acute. But this is where the responsible me digs in and says "Keep your head for now". Trouble is, there are two sides to this game. I guess those saffron robes will have to hang on their nail a little longer.